What are the roots of all this madness, not only in Iraq, but also in Congo, Afghanistan, in China, Korea, and all over the world? What is the reason for constantly harming our beautiful planet and ourselves?

The root cause of all suffering is ignorance. Ignorance gives rise to fear, greed, and aggression in the human psyche. All the horrors we see in the world today stem from ignorance giving rise to selfishness, which appears as fear, greed, and aggression.

Ignorance is ignoring the truth of the situation. When things are ignored they tend to run sub-consciously, or just below the surface.

Betrayal is a word that sounds very dramatic to me, associated with being condemned to death. One betrays one’s country, one’s church, one’s faith, the trust of our fellows, our vows, the truth, etc. When you speak about self-betrayal, what do you mean?

Eli and Gangaji: Over the years of speaking with thousands of people we have both had the experience of watching moments of true understanding blossom in many people. A moment of expansion and recognition of oneself, infinitely more than what is confined to an individual body-mind.

Every person I meet desires to be in peaceful relationship with others. So how is it that human relationships, within which there is the chance of a true meeting, turn so often into never-ending war, even if this war only stays cold?

The body, like all living bodies, is a survival machine. As long as we overlook our unexamined identification as a body, the body’s survival circuits subconsciously run us. The ego is the most advanced survival circuit developed by the kingdom of bodies. It allows mankind to rule and destroy the earth. Since the ego is a survival machine, and since most humans are living an egoic life, the patterns for survival take precedence over all others.

In my first meetings with you, I understood that my chance to meet you was due to a request from Poonjaji in the realm of therapy. What was this request, and how did this request arise in your relation to Poonjaji, or Papaji as you call him?

When I first met Papaji the bliss was overwhelming. I fell instantly into the deepest love and peace in our first meeting sitting on his bed. I soon told him that I only wanted to sleep outside his door and take care of him. He laughed and said he had plans for me beyond my wildest dreams.

He then told me that a candle that lights other candles is really something. But a candle that lights other candles that light other candles is something else again. I understood then his mission. Not just to enlighten all who came in his door, but for those who received the transmission and caught fire to carry the light to others as the flame passes around the world.

With the growing interest in satsang-advaitas in Europe, there is some confusion around the meditation subject. I’d like to bring up this concern with you. The traditional Buddhist teaching enhances the role and importance of meditation, the neo-Advaita followers seem to think that there is no need to put in regular time for meditating.

Maybe you could start by defining the subject of meditation and the traditional purpose of the meditation.

To start at the beginning, meditation in Sanskrit is the word Dyana. Dyana is the absence of all thought and the intelligent clarity of open awareness. There is no one doing anything at all.

When Buddhism was brought to China by Bodhidarma, the word Dyana (which is pronounced in the Northern Indian dialects by dropping the last “a”) becomes Chan in Chinese. When Chan was imported to Japan, the same word was pronounced Zen. So the no-mind teaching of Buddhism is the same as the original Sanskrit.

BC: Last night, as I knew that an interview with you was taking place, a subject appeared: Self Realization.

This concept is much used and seems central to the mankind quest for happiness since forever. What does that mean for you?

To realize your Self is the fruition of a human life. Each flowering of a human incarnation contains within it the potential to bear fruit. Until this present time this fruiting was a very rare event. Most human flowers bloomed, reproduced and died without ever reaching the fruiting stage.

To ask how important is love for being is like asking how important is light to fire. Fire and light are inseparable but even more so are Being and Love. Being is Love. Love is Being. This is the true essence of Self. Self is the true identity of Man.

Eli responds:
From the perspective of the one asking the question the answer is, “Of course not.” In order to ask this question one must be in a point of duality assuming that the dualistic mind can find the answer. In this state the answer will always be either the direct experience of duality through the senses, or a belief in some idea of unity. Even if Einstein’s Theory of Relativity proves that time and space form one continuum and therefore everything that appears within the time space continuum must be of that same fabric, this abstract mental answer is never satisfying to the questioning mind. So, instead we usually turn toward belief or faith or opinion.

From an 2011 interview with Eli for the book ‘How Do You Pray’ – by Celeste Yacaboni

Before you asked me this question, I never really considered how I have prayed. As I look back on my life I would say I never did pray for most of my life. From the time I was three years old I was questioning if there was a god. I remember once when I was around eight years old locking myself in the bathroom. I went inside and I said, “If you exist I need a sign. Anything at all.” I listened and I looked. I only saw blackness and I heard silence. The longer I listened the deeper I fell into the dark silence. After a while I came back and felt that I did not receive any sign at all and while this was not a sign that God did not exist, I could not know if there was a God or not.

Religion seemed pointless to me. It all seemed fake. So while I would mouth the prayers as long as I was required to attend, I never prayed.